My friend Rainy – Lost Child – Part 7

It is 10 p.m. as I leave Manuel’s after a dinner of grilled chicken and a few shots of Absinthe. I am content. Even Rainy who normally picks fights with the other four legged locals is quiet. It’s a pleasant walk along the moonlit beach to the car park. The cool air is comforting as I stop by a rock, sit down and light a cigar. Rainy sits at my feet and doses off.

A young woman walks by and glances at me and then turns her face to the sea. She returns after awhile and again looks at me, hesitating.

“May I help you?” I ask confidently.

“Err…I think I have met you…a long time ago”, she replies walking up to me. Rainy begins to whine…a low pitched whine.

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“Rainy”

“He’s beautiful,” she says and bends down to pat him. Rainy freezes, his eyes glowing in the moonlight.

“May I join you; it’s a lovely night to be out alone”.

“Yes, please do.”

“I imagined this night would be like others, walking alone without a kindred soul to speak it. Luckily I have found you, now I can move on”, she says

“Move on?”

“There are times when one needs to complete the circle. Every journey ends in a circle. So it is important to complete the journey.”

“Sorry I don’t understand”.

“Well, when you embark on a journey from a point, you have to return to the originating point to complete the journey. That is the law of the Universe. “

“Oh…”

“How is your son? And have you seen him lately?”

“You know my son?”

“No, but I have seen him. He bears the mark of his father.”

This was all confusing…conversing with a young woman on a moonlit beach who knew me and my son and yet I have never met her before.

“My son always wanted a sister and often he would ask me to order one….haha…children have an innocence…pity they lose it as they grow up.”

“Why didn’t you have a second child?”

“My son was our second child. The first child was a beautiful daughter who died at birth.”

The woman looked at me with incandescent eyes and reached out and held my hand.

“Do you still remember her?”

“How can I forget…holding her small warm body wrapped in cloth and carrying her to the river to be submerged. It was a moment with eternity as I watched her body sink into the brown waters. Never for a moment have I forgotten her. Never. How can I? I was her father? Oh I just wish for a moment I can hold her once more in my arms. To feel her breath and know that she lives with divinity”.

“You still love her?”

“Yes, yes she is my daughter”.

“Why do you say ‘is’?”

“Because she never died, she is somewhere,” I replied in a trembling voice, “Somewhere out there”.

This was all too much and I retreated to my cigar and inhaled.

“I am sorry for bringing up the past. I have still a lot to learn even at this age of 25. It’s getting late, I have to move on”, she says and kisses me on the cheek then turns and slowly walks away.

Just then Rainy begins tugging at my trousers.

“What?”

“She is 25years old?”

“So?”

“Your daughter would have been 25 this year. What was your daughter’s name?”

“Sitara, which means star”.

“What’s your name?” I shout out to the departing young woman.

“Sitara, Papa”, she replies.

“My child…my child”, I cry out.

“Papa, I love you”, she shouts sending a flying kiss and fading into the moonlight.

I want to run after her but my legs don’t move. I am shivering.

“Mate, she had to go…the circle is now complete…be grateful for the moment,” says Rainy as he licks my hand.

The mutt is right for suddenly a deep sense of peace descends on my soul and in a flash all is understood.